Network policies can be used to prevent undesirable material from being retrieved by a client computer. Such material can include malicious code that detrimentally modifies the behaviour of the retrieving computer or adult-oriented material that is unsuitable for viewing by a child that has access to the computer, to name just a few examples.
Network police services respond to requests for material (e.g., web pages) made by client computers. Logging these requests can aid the operator of a network policy service in understanding the performance of the policy service, potential holes in policy, and the nature of the requests and who is making them.
However, the number of content requests in even a medium-sized network can be vast. Existing methods of logging such requests can fail to log all requests, are typically not easily deployable and configurable, and generally leave much to be desired.